1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical disc drive, and more particularly, to a slim optical disc drive built in a portable device such as a notebook computer and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Optical disc drives are generally used to record information on and/or reproduce information from compact discs (CDs) and digital video discs (DVDs). An optical disc drive includes an optical pickup which slides in a radial direction of an optical disc to irradiate a beam onto a recording surface of the optical disc that is rotating, so as to record information on and/or reproduce information from the optical disc. In particular, an optical disc drive is made slim for use in a portable device such as a notebook computer.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a conventional slim optical disc drive, and FIG. 2 is a detailed perspective view of the conventional slim optical disc drive of FIG. 1 built in a notebook computer. Referring to FIG. 1, a main body 10 includes a spindle motor 40 which rotates an optical disc D and a tray 30 on which an optical pickup 50 is mounted to access the optical disc D and record information on and/or reproduce information from the optical disc D. The tray 30 slides in a direction indicated by an arrow to be loaded into and/or unloaded from the main body 10. The main body 10 further includes a main control board (not shown), which controls the movement of an optical disc drive, an upper frame 11 and a lower frame 12.
In FIG. 2, a slim optical disc drive 60 is built in a portable computer 70. Portable computers such as notebook computers and the like are being made more compact and lighter. Thus, various attempts to reduce the thickness of optical disc drives have been made.
For example, the upper frame 11 and the lower frame 12 of the main body 10 are made of an iron plate with the thickness of 1.0 mm or less. Also, a gap between the tray 30 and the main body 10 is approximately 1 mm, and a gap between the optical disc D and the upper frame 11 is between 1 and 2 mm.
Since the upper frame 11 and the lower frame 12 each have a thin thickness, the optical disc drive 60 becomes weak. As shown in FIG. 2, when the optical disc drive 60 is inserted into the portable computer 70, the optical disc drive 60 is generally located under a keyboard 71. When the keyboard 71 is pressed down, the keyboard 71 may be slightly deformed by a load F and thus presses down the upper frame 11. As previously described, the upper frame 11 is generally made of a thin iron plate. Thus, the upper frame 11 may be slightly distorted by the load F. In particular, as indicated by dashed lines of FIG. 1, a front end 13 of the upper frame 11 is most seriously bent. This is because edges 14, 15, and 16 of the upper frame 11 are perpendicularly bent down and the front end 13 is open so that the tray 30 slides into and/or out of the main body 10. When a heavy load is applied to the keyboard 71, the upper frame 11 may be distorted to reduce a gap between the optical disc D and the upper frame 11. As a result, the upper frame 11 may touch the optical disc D during the rotation of the optical disc D, and the optical disc D may be seriously damaged.